A gynecologist from Pau was banned from practicing for a month for refusing to treat a transgender patient, we learned on Thursday from the Order of Physicians, confirming information from La République des Pyrénées.
The decision, handed down in the first instance by the disciplinary chamber of the Regional Order of Physicians of Nouvelle-Aquitaine on January 16, establishes a sanction of six months of prohibition from practicing, including five months suspended, which will take effect from March 1 to 31. The doctor can still appeal this decision.
In August 2023, this patient, who had been on a gender transition journey for three years, presented herself at the Pau gynecologist's office after making an appointment online, for chest pain. He then refused to treat her.
The next day, her partner left a negative comment on the doctor's Google page, which replied that he took care of "real women", that he had "no skills" to take care of "men even if they shave their beards and come and tell my secretary that they have become women". "You have specialized and very competent services to take care of men like you. I thank you for informing trans people never to come and see me", the gynecologist continued.
Anti-discrimination groups are outraged by the response, prompting the doctor to apologise to the community "hurt by comments I probably shouldn't have made".
The Regional Order of Physicians, however, sanctioned the doctor, recalling that, according to the Public Health Code, "no person may be discriminated against in access to prevention or care", and considered that his remarks did not constitute "simple clumsiness", but were "discriminatory towards people undergoing gender transition".
A criminal investigation opened after the filing of two complaints by the associations SOS Homophobie and SOS Transphobie is now over, the Pau prosecutor's office said on Thursday, and must now "decide on any possible criminal action to be taken."
For Edouard Martial, lawyer for the refused patient, the sanction "corresponds exactly to what we expected, no more and no less." "We argued for a sanction and its importance matters little to us as long as it is said that he committed a disciplinary offence," the lawyer added.